Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

  Something in Pammy’s manner seemed off, almost like she didn’t want to tell them about the dead body at all.

  “Was she in a blanket?” Val asked. “Bound?”

  “I don’t know,” Pammy said. “She’d been there a while, and I didn’t get all the details. The police don’t know who she is, though.”

  “Where did you hear this?” Val asked. “Was it on the news? Because I missed it.”

  “The admissions office,” Pammy said tightly. “They think she was one of my students.”

  “Why would they think that if they don’t know who she is?” Eagle asked.

  “She fought back,” Pammy said quietly.

  That sentence made no sense to Eagle. What did fighting back have to do with Pammy?

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Val said. “Just because a victim fights back doesn’t mean she was trained to. I fought—”

  She cut herself off, but not before Pammy looked at her sharply.

  Eagle clamped her lips together. Val’s body language was closed. This wasn’t the time to ask what Val had fought. Or who.

  Then Val opened her hands a little, then shook her head as if she couldn’t believe she had just said that.

  “I fought back,” she said softly. “I just had no idea what I was doing. It didn’t work. My fault. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  The “my fault” caught Eagle. It was said so softly, so gingerly.

  “Not your fault at all,” Pammy said. “Someone hurt you. You can’t take the blame for that on yourself.”

  “I know.” Val looked down. “It’s just—Truman, you know. He always told me I should learn how to fight. I might need it. And I thought he was—well, he was—but I thought it was just part of him being overprotective, you know? I didn’t think anyone would ever hurt me.”

  “If we constantly thought people were here to hurt us, we couldn’t walk through the world,” Pammy said.

  It was one of those cliché things that Pammy said, without thinking. Pammy, who had led a pretty damn good life, all things considered.

  “Oh, bullshit,” Eagle said. “I thought you taught people how to survive in a hostile environment.”

  She was a bit startled at how angry she sounded.

  “We have to be realistic,” Pammy said. “I think part of being realistic is having the same skills as the men around us. We’re human. We can be prepared for the good and the bad. Most women just aren’t prepared for the bad.”

  Eagle snorted. “The world is a terrible place. Your husband, Val, he wanted to protect you, and he couldn’t be there all the time. He—”

  “He couldn’t even protect himself, even with all of his skills. He died…” Val cut off half a word that Eagle couldn’t quite make out. “He died on the job.”

  Eagle didn’t want to deal with the emotion that was bubbling up. Not yet. Besides, anger was easier.

  Much easier.

  Eagle looked at Pammy. “What you learn out there in the real world is that there are just some kiss-your-ass-goodbye moments. You can’t solve them. You can’t fight your way out of them. You can’t outthink them.”

  “But there are other moments that you can solve and you can outthink and you can fight,” Pammy said. “With the right training. You can do it.”

  Val took a shaky breath. Eagle felt momentarily guilty. She’d been talking about Val’s pain as if it were theoretical. Or maybe, Eagle had been talking about her own pain. Sometimes punching things solved nothing at all. It didn’t even make you feel better. It just made your hands hurt.

  “Well, Pammy,” Eagle said drily. “Go ahead. Tell all those platitudes to this Kelly girl, and maybe along the way, you can find out what happened to her. Maybe that’ll get us one step closer to saving another woman.”

  Eagle knew she wasn’t making any friends at the moment, but she wasn’t really trying. She wasn’t quite sure why she was so angry either. Maybe because there were no easy answers.

  Maybe because she felt so goddamn helpless.

  She wasn’t good at helpless.

  She never had been.

  Pammy raised her chin slightly. “Have you thought about how we’re going to ‘save’ this woman once we find out who has her? Because I can’t come up with anything.”

  “Maybe the police will help,” Val said. “I spoke to at least one detective who wants to catch this man.”

  “Maybe,” Pammy said. “If we don’t present this as a Berkeley thing.”

  But she sounded like she didn’t believe they would get any help at all.

  “We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Eagle said. “Right now, we know that there’s a guy out there, hurting people, and he drives a truck. That’s pretty much all we know.”

  “Which is more than we knew yesterday,” Val said.

  “We knew it,” Pammy said.

  “We suspected it,” Val said. “And we didn’t know the extent.”

  She sounded stronger now. That woman who had spoken softly, who had spoken of pain and hurt and blame, seemed to have disappeared.

  “We’re actually moving forward on this, faster than I would have expected.” Val clearly said that second part for Eagle.

  Val met the gazes of both Pammy and Eagle as if she were in charge. Eagle was beginning to get used to that, and it had only taken one conversation.

  “I tell you what,” Val said, “let’s meet for dinner and see if we have anything new. That’ll give Pammy a chance to talk with Kelly and find out what happened.”

  Eagle would drive herself to the precinct, see if she could talk to the detectives that visited her. That news from Walnut Creek might actually help.

  “What are you going to do this afternoon?” Eagle asked Val, hoping they could have lunch again. Hoping they could find some quality time together.

  Val smiled sheepishly. “Pammy’s been kicking my butt. I’m exhausted. Plus, I hardly slept last night. What I really need right now is a nap. Then I’ll figure out how I can continue to contribute to this investigation.”

  She sounded so reasonable, but she stood as she spoke, and her movements were slow—the movements of an old woman.

  “If you don’t mind, that is.” Val said that last to Pammy, not to Eagle.

  Pammy waved a hand, not quite dismissively. “Rest is an essential part of getting into shape. Don’t I say that as part of the instructions?”

  She sounded just a tad defensive.

  “You do,” Val said. “Dinner?”

  “Yes,” Pammy said. “Let’s just meet here. My class ends at six, students will be gone by seven. I can find someone to watch the gym for an hour at least.”

  “Or maybe we should get take-out,” Eagle said, “considering what we’ll be talking about.”

  “All right then,” Pammy said. Her tone was getting harsher and harsher. “You’re in charge of the eats.”

  She stood too, but her movements were easy. Fluid. She was used to the exercise.

  Eagle had no choice but to stand up. Apparently, this meeting was over.

  “I’ll see you both in a while.” Val grabbed her purse. She smiled at Eagle, waved her fingers at Pammy, and left the office quickly.

  Either she was tired, or she needed to get out of the room. Maybe a little of both.

  Pammy held up one finger. She tilted her head slightly, as if she were listening. Eagle couldn’t hear much beyond the hum of the fluorescent light overhead.

  Finally, Pammy put her hand down.

  “Do you like her?” Pammy asked.

  Eagle’s face warmed. Was it that obvious? Had her crush become something other people could recognize?

  “Because she seems a little pushy,” Pammy said.

  Oh. Eagle let out a small breath. That was what Pammy meant.

  “She’s helped a lot,” Eagle said. “She found out a great deal more than either of us.”

  Pammy let out a big sigh. “I know. I’m just…not used to someone else taking charge like that, I guess.”
>
  Eagle smiled. “I know.”

  Pammy raised her eyebrows. “You—?”

  “She doesn’t even know she’s doing it,” Eagle said. “She’s clearly used to being the smartest person in the room.”

  Eagle was beginning to think that maybe Val was the smartest person in the room. At least, the smartest person in this room.

  But Eagle wasn’t going to say that to Pammy.

  “Well,” Pammy said in a little softer tone, “I guess that’s something I can understand.”

  She sat back down, and nodded toward Eagle as if she expected Eagle to do the same.

  Eagle sat.

  Pammy extended her arms over the desktop, half covering those lists. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

  She sounded uncertain. Pammy never sounded uncertain.

  “About seeing Kelly?” Eagle asked. “I think Val is right; I think you’re our best—”

  “About this place. Teaching women how to defend themselves. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

  Eagle leaned back. She had heard Pammy vigorously defend the gym against anyone who suggested that Pammy was doing something wrong. The fact that Pammy was asking Eagle herself was a surprise. Because Eagle was often one of those people Pammy was defending this place against.

  “Do I think you got that girl killed?” Eagle asked. “There’s no evidence that she was even here—”

  “I know all of that,” Pammy snapped. “That’s not what I asked you.”

  Eagle straightened. The metal folding chair was digging into the back of her legs.

  “Are you doing the right thing,” she mused. “Teaching these women how to use their fists? How to fight back?”

  Images filled her mind before she could stop them. Small Vietnamese women lifted above the heads of American G.I.s, as the men laughed and the women hung their heads in panic and humiliation; children tossing infants in a nightmarish dream—

  “Yes,” Eagle said, as much to make the images go away as to answer the question. “Yes, I think you’re doing the right thing.”

  Pammy looked at her, shocked. Eagle had never said that before.

  Eagle continued, “You were right with what you said to Val a few minutes ago. In some situations, it pays to fight back. And it pays to have every single ability you can at your fingertips. Me, I’d rather not get into the situation, but I know I can survive the survivable ones. I have a brain, I know how to use a gun, and I know how to fight dirty. That’s enough.”

  “And medical training,” Pammy said.

  “Well, that’ll help other people,” Eagle said. “It might help me in a situation, and it might not. I have to be conscious, clear-headed, and able to communicate. That’s a tall order in a crisis.”

  Pammy nodded. She ran her hands through her short hair.

  “It’s not like you to doubt,” Eagle said, before she could stop herself.

  “It’s just…” Pammy’s voice trailed off. Then she squared her shoulders. “I thought I was helping a particular group of women.”

  Eagle frowned at her.

  “I don’t mean consciously,” Pammy said. “But it turned out that way. Women like me, you know, women of a certain age and socioeconomic status. Women who had some means, but who usually married or when they were younger, got involved with the wrong men. Women who sometimes found themselves in a bad neighborhood. Women whose problems were mostly middle-class.”

  “Violence happens at all levels,” Eagle said.

  “I’m realizing that,” Pammy said. “It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, a new rock moves, and something even more horrible climbs out from underneath it.”

  “Like this man in the truck,” Eagle said.

  “If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t have heard of him. If I hadn’t had the classes here, I wouldn’t know he hurt more than one person. If Val hadn’t made her calls, we wouldn’t know about the dead bodies wrapped in blankets and dropped off trucks.” Pammy threaded her hands together and pressed them against her mouth. “I’m a cop’s daughter. I know that things can get bad. I guess I was a cop’s sheltered daughter, because I didn’t know how bad. I’m just beginning to realize how bad.”

  “That baby…?” Eagle asked.

  Pammy’s eyes widened. “God, the baby. That seems like weeks ago. Yes, the baby. And people like that. If I’m not careful, Eagle, I’ll only see the bad stuff. I was getting to the point where I was doubting Val because I don’t know her well.”

  “You didn’t know me well when I came here,” Eagle said. She didn’t add that Pammy still didn’t know her well.

  “I know,” Pammy said. “But I was a lot more naïve when I met you.”

  Eagle tilted her head slightly. That was true. Pammy was just beginning to realize it.

  Eagle stood. “The gym’s worthwhile,” she said. “I didn’t think so at first. I think so now. It’s been two years. You’re building a community. The community helps its members out. You’re building resources.”

  “We might not be able to save that woman you saw,” Pammy said.

  “I know,” Eagle said. “But think about this: what would have happened if there was no gym? I would have called the police, the detectives would have come out, and they would have treated me the same. And then…what? I keep hounding them? I try to write it off? I certainly wouldn’t investigate on my own.”

  She didn’t add that she might have slipped all the way down, hidden in her bong and some beer until they threw her out of her apartment. Given up on everything.

  That woman, that man in the truck, that night, it might have been the very last straw.

  “Your instincts are good, Pammy,” Eagle said. “Trust them. I do.”

  And then, because she didn’t want to continue this conversation any longer, she shifted. If she didn’t get out of the room, she would confess to things she didn’t want to admit.

  Pammy didn’t need to know how close to the edge Eagle had been. How close Eagle still was.

  Eagle hadn’t thought of it that way before, the fact that the gym had probably saved her too. Goddammit. She didn’t like being that woman, the woman who needed other people.

  But she was.

  They all were.

  They needed each other.

  And it was time they all realized it.

  39

  Val

  I was so exhausted, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it home. My legs shook as I walked, and my eyes burned as if someone had blown cigarette smoke into them. I barely noticed the other people on the street. They all seemed busy with something important.

  I felt like I was wrapped in gauze and launched into a world I didn’t quite understand. The cloudy day had turned into the kind of grayness that made the edges of everything, from buildings to signs to cars, indistinct. Finally, the day matched my mood.

  Telling Pammy that I had been attacked—my cheeks got warm just thinking of it. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t wanted to. But both Pammy and Eagle needed to understand that fighting back wasn’t the same as successfully fighting back.

  It wasn’t the same at all.

  I had trouble keeping my balance. I was walking like a drunk, not quite in control of my movements, and a few people looked at me sideways, probably judging me.

  Hell, I would have been judging me.

  When I couldn’t take it anymore, I went into the next sandwich shop I saw and realized, from the smell of corned beef mixed with the tang of sauerkraut, that I was in an actual deli—a different one from the day before. I didn’t even know the name of it, just that my stomach rumbled.

  I ordered a corned beef on rye to go, and watched as the thick-armed man in the butcher’s apron expertly stacked the meat, the Swiss cheese, and the thin cabbage on dark rye. The sandwich looked too big to put in my mouth, but I didn’t say anything.

  He pressed it down, wrapped it in wax paper, cut it with a sharp knife, then wrapped the individual pieces i
n butcher’s paper. A real deli, and I had somehow missed it in all of my travels around this area of town.

  He bagged the sandwich, offered me a pickle, which I refused, and took my money, almost in one movement. He didn’t have a tip jar, and when I asked, he looked past me, and shouted, “Next!” as if he hadn’t heard me at all.

  The flush in my face grew warmer, and I wanted to get small.

  I was tired. I was just tired. I got this kind of insecure when I was tired.

  I walked outside clutching the bag and forced myself to look at the window of the deli. I then looked at the neighborhood, and the cross streets, making myself remember.

  Too often in the past several months, I had stayed away from places after I had embarrassed myself like I had done here, things that would have made the me before I ended up on the other side of the crevasse shake her head in confusion.

  Maybe I should be the one to talk with Kelly MacGivers. I at least would understand the aftermath of an attack. I would know how hard it was to go through life again.

  Although that wasn’t fair. I had no idea what had prompted Pammy to set up the gym or Eagle to work at it. For all I knew, their histories were as dark as mine. Or darker.

  I was too self-centered, too self-focused.

  I tried to recapture the feeling I had had in the middle of the night, when I had been doing something for someone else, when it felt like I was making progress.

  I was tired, that was all. I defaulted to this depressed, scared woman when I was tired.

  Somehow I made it to my street. The short walk to the house seemed like a slog. Too late, I remembered to be vigilant. I didn’t want to stop and scan the entire street, but I did look, moving my eyes slightly, and glancing behind me to see if someone had followed me.

  I had no idea how I would know if someone had, because I hadn’t been keeping an eye on anyone.

  The hairs on the back of my neck had not risen, though, and I didn’t feel like I was being followed. That feeling was something I had gotten used to after the Queen Nefertiti Ball, and I had tried to dismiss the feeling back then.

  I had been wrong.

  He had been following me. Armand Vitel, police officer, colleague of Truman’s. A horrid, horrid man, who apparently had been admiring me from afar.